


Theatrical

by factual



Category: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - John Le Carré
Genre: Gen, M/M, before they were spies, goobers i tell you, goobers the lot of them, youngins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-29
Updated: 2012-01-29
Packaged: 2017-10-30 07:15:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/329171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/factual/pseuds/factual
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Oxford days of Bill Haydon and Jim Prideaux, set to the tune of Brahms and leftover cigarettes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Theatrical

**Author's Note:**

> “Better than a lover’s heart, the immortality of a name”  
> — _Reprise_ , Deborah Brown

i.

They were in the reading room when Bill asked if he wanted a fag. Jim didn’t say anything at first. He finished reading the page and said: “I don’t smoke.”

“Of course you don’t,” Bill said. “Accompany me.”

Addison’s Walk in October was one of those picturesque battlegrounds that would one day simultaneously entice and break the hearts of millions of prospective undergraduates by being plastered all over college brochures and marketed as one of the distinct landmarks of Magdalen College. But this was 1937, a precarious and yet much more dangerous time. 

Bill Haydon was smoking and talking about a scene he’d chanced upon the night before. A lover’s quarrel, he described it; all in his wry and apologetic way. Jim knew he was meant it as a joke because Bill wasn’t ever apologetic if he didn’t need to be. Apologetic was not his nature, which Jim liked.

“Then what?” Jim asked.

“What?”

“You said the girl tried to throw a bicycle at him.”

“She did. She picked it up half-way before collapsing. Then the fellow—I’m familiar with him, actually, his name’s Banks and his father’s the cousin of a Duke—raced over to help her up, but she grabbed at his wrist and they both fell down. I’m sorry. It’s all very dull. I dull myself saying it now.” He stopped by the River Cherwell and let his cigarette ash fall into the water. Bill smoked like an old man, contemplative, dreamlike, a little bit sad. The trees were bare of their leaves; the fall had begun. “What were you reading earlier?”

“Herodotus.”

“I always liked the story of Gyges. Ah, the infamous predicament he finds himself in. Either kill his king and marry his queen, or die. Just because of some indecent nudity. Ancients fascinate me.”

“I’m just at the part where Xerxes changes his mind on the Greek situation. His uncle asks why his mood has shifted from one end of the spectrum to the other—you know what I mean. And he says that he has felt compassion; he realizes that human life is really very short and gets remorseful because of it. In so many years we’ll be gone.”

“How many years?”

“Fifty years,” said Jim.

“Herodotus said one hundred,” Bill said.

“I know. You mind—?” He gestured to Bill’s third cigarette. Bill smiled and let his hand rest on Jim’s shoulder while Jim finished smoking for him. They walked all the way down Botanic Road and across the Tolka River before turning back. By then it was dusk. The path was melancholy and inviting. While they took a rest by the hospital Bill told the story of Higgins and his unfortunate hickey. Higgins was half-Scottish and known for his animated contributions during study group and passion for philately. (It was through the philatelic society that Jim had come to know Higgins and his impressive hand gestures.) 

The soft wind breeze followed their treading footsteps. Jim could hear and distinguish the surrounding noises as if they were occurring individually. Bill stepped on a bad spot but neatly avoided a crisis. At the last two hundred meters, they raced each other to the gates. It was one of the more pleasant days.

ii.

A few months before, Bill had told him that he’d written a letter recommending Jim for British intelligence. Fanshawe, a talent-spotter, was Bill’s tutor. He acted as he always did, charmingly and nonchalantly so, with a drink in hand. “Jim,” he’d said, “I’ve got a proposition for you and you’ve no say about it.”

“Oh good, I’ve been in need of a vice.”

“Oh, this is more interesting than plain old vice.” Bill handed him a manila file. “Don’t read it now. Read it later, by yourself.” Don’t talk to me about it. Follow its direction to the letter. This never happened. Implicitly, Jim understood what Bill was telling him.

Jim dropped the file into his bag and returned with a cork opener for Bill’s wine. He himself preferred to survive on straight vodka.

iii.

Bill’s room overlooked the Quad and sometimes on Saturday nights they sat by the window. They smoked Dunhills and watched the stars die and the occasional outdoor revelry. They talked about metaphysics and physics in literature. Every so often, Bill drank from a mug of cold tea, hating the taste but enduring it for his headache. Smoking gave him headaches, especially if he smoked enough, because the cigarettes cleared his mind and gave him too many thoughts. There was too much to mull over and not enough brain capacity to process it. Times like this were when Bill detested being human.

They talked about limitations.

“Once when I was attending a lycée in Paris, I had a friend who got in all sorts of trouble. He wasn’t meant for schooling at all, you see, but his family was wealthy and it was necessary that he earn a degree before entering the family business. Which was—what was it?—wine production? They had farms of sorts in the countryside, used to go on holiday there, I imagine. My friend wanted to go for cinema. He greatly admires German expressionism, which was as inconvenient then as it is now, and he went to great lengths to obtain film reels and books on the subject. In a sense, he was a scholar and a learned man. But it was the wrong time and he was in the wrong place and eventually he was tossed into jail. It’s better for him, like this; he’ll be safe, and when he’s done serving he’ll be given the proper papers and he will go to America.”

“You sound bitter.” Then: “Would you like to go to America?”

Jim slouched over the window sill. The tip of his cigarette brushed against the brick and he crushed it, suddenly furious. The emotion went away as quickly as it had come, which surprised him. It was just past three and he felt tired. He didn’t want to go to sleep.

“I’d like to go to Connecticut.”

Bill laughed. “Silly boy. If a place is worth going to, it’s New York.”

“I think you would suit New York very well. The city loves you. The city would be lucky to have you. And you enjoy the lights anyway.”

“There are no lights in Connecticut.”

“That’s right.” He turned over and looked, sleepy-eyed, at Bill. “Probably better off rotting there.” His murmurings were quiet and smooth, run-on and incoherent. He started to talk about Strasbourg and Prague, places Bill had never been to but would one day travel to and understand as well as Jim did. Prague was full of winding streets and looking up. At night you looked up to the castle, not the stars. The drunks walked with everyone else; schoolchildren crowded the small alleyway shops. On and off, he mentioned how little cricket practice he was getting.

iv. 

He said: “I’ve got something better for you.”

Jim asked: “What could be better?”

He said: “You’re going to make a name for yourself, aren’t you?”

Jim said: “You’re going to break many, many hearts.”

He laughed: “Oh, shut up.”

Jim thought: “You have so much heart and wrath all hidden inside you and you don’t know the full extent of it.” He thought, I’m going to miss you one day. He thought, I’d do anything for you even if I had to break the law and become a fugitive though to be fair I’m always on the verge of becoming one and if anyone drives me over the edge it will probably be you and it might as well be you. He thought, isn’t it funny how we’re like this? He touched Bill’s hand, held it, noted its warmth, indentations, and roughness, and Bill touched him back and it was all right.

A few days later, Bill Haydon left Oxford for the service and it was not long before Jim followed.


End file.
